thecatevari (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thecatevari) wrote2007-11-19 12:27 am
thecatevari) wrote2007-11-19 12:27 am
Entry tags:
And We Are Ashes: Chapter 7, Part 3
Woot! Another chapter down. One more actual "episode" and then I'm in 100% AU territory, instead of just skirting its shores.
37,051 / 50,000 words. 74% done!
Today's Word Count: 3,000
Current Total Word Count: 37,051
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: I'm at that point where I'm starting to question whether I'm going to be able to get this done in 100,000 words. I'm 37,000 in and I haven't done Dead Man's Blood or the denouement. I'm also at the Sloughs of Despair part where I'm convinced it's all dreck, I'm a hack and no one's going to read this anyway, after all this work. That's not a plea for reassurance. It's just the process. And my fear, don't get me wrong, but I'm always like this at this stage, too close to see if it's any good or not.
What's good: The Sam & Mary continues to be golden and I love the pivot of Mary's feelings about Max Miller. Of all the special kids, I think I felt the worst for him, poor thing. Word count's good too; I think that covers my deficit from before. Nineteen days in and I'm sitting kinda pretty.
What pleases me: "Look," Sam says in a soothing voice, "I don't know…I don't know what it was like with you. I know I can't even imagine what it was like for you growing up like you did…"
Mary recognizes the bitter satisfaction that goes across Max's face, the perverse pride of knowing no one else's misfortunes outweigh yours. The familiarity takes her by the throat, a taste like bile in the back of her mouth.
"I couldn't tell anybody, when my visions started. Not my girl, not my mom, not my…my brother." Mary hears the catch in Sam's voice and has to look away, the sourness of her mouth worsening. She looks past the two boys to Hannah Miller, still flattened to the wall. Mary catches the other woman's gaze, reading the mingled terror and guilt. Mary's anger is quick to follow, burning up through her whole body to warm her through. Jennifer McCoy had risked her life and died to keep her son safe and out of the hands of the Aunts and this woman couldn't even protect Max from his father and uncle. She puts her anger aside, out of place and useless to her in this situation and signals with her eyes, indicating that Hannah should edge sideways, toward the door behind her and to her right. Hannah's eyes flick in that direction without comprehension and then back to Mary's.
"…but I know what it's like to be different," Sam continues in that same even, earnest voice. "To be afraid of it. To hate it. To want more than anything to be like the kids you see on the street, the ones you go to school with; the ones that don't even know how good they got it."
"Yeah," Max mutters, half under his breath.
Previous parts can be found here
"You didn't stop them, not once!"
The voices are coming from the kitchen. Mary glances to Sam and he nods, clearly unhappy about the whole thing. She signals him to let her lead and he nods, though he gives her a look, somewhere between bitchface and pleading.
Mary understands Sam's worries; Sam's watched her kill monsters and things that used to be or could be men. He's never known where her lines are. And to be fair, Mary's not always sure where those lines are herself, especially when it comes to Sam and Dean. But she doesn't want to kill Max Miller. Not if she can help it. Not if there's any hope that he can be salvaged from the wreckage of his bloodline.
She was hoping to get the drop on Max, but from behind her, Sam shouts, "Max!" It's enough warning for him to rip the gun from her fingers with his TK.
"Max, what's happening?" Hannah Miller wails, as the gun slides across the floor to her stepson. Mary steps forward, but not fast enough; Max stoops and scoops the gun up, turning it back on her and Sam.
"Max," she says, careful to pitch her voice calmly and levelly, "we're not here to hurt you."
"Oh, yeah, right," Max sneers. "That's why you came in here pointing a gun at me."
"You were threatening your mother with a knife," Mary points out gently.
"She's not my mother." Max glances back at Hannah, still cowering against the wall. Sam is trying to edge between them and Mary suppresses the impulse to knock him back with her own TK. Her telekinesis can't outrace a bullet and Max is on a hair trigger.
"Fine, then. You're right. Your stepmother. Because your real mother was a McCoy, right?" Mary's whole body feels like a tuning fork, vibrating with the awareness of each person in the room—their place, their presence, the perilous crosscurrent of their emotions. More than that, she feels her blood sing with the incredible stupidity of just being here, when the McCoys might already know about Max and could be moving against him. Against all of them.
"How do you know that?" Max demands suspiciously. He swings the gun at Sam suddenly, freezing Sam in his tracks. "Stop moving!" Max screams, and the knife wavers and darts at Hannah Miller again, nicking a teardrop of blood from her cheek just below her eye. "Just…everyone stay still!"
"Sam," Mary warns in a low voice.
Sam nods unwillingly, but doesn't back off, still halfway between Max and Hannah.
"Max." Mary's gifts aren't strong enough to use on another McCoy, but she hasn't been relying solely on her Voice all these years. Not with a son as stubborn as Sam. She fights to put all that hard-won persuasiveness into her tone, to keep Max focused and on her.
"How did you know that?" Max asks again. His hands are shaking badly enough that he's having a hard time holding the .38 straight…though not so much so that he wouldn't hit her, at this close a range. "About my mom?"
"Because I'm a McCoy too."
"You're lying."
"I'm not. Max, I swear to you, I'm not. Watch." She's been using too much lately, she knows that, but she literally can't think of another way to convince Max. So Mary reaches out with her mind—already feeling the trembling precursors to the headache to follow—and tips the cutting board over, spilling green peppers onto the linoleum. She considered going after the gun, but she suspects Max is a lot stronger than she is, and she doesn't trust what he'll do if startled. Besides, she needs his trust if she's going to have any hope of saving his life.
"How…how did you do that?" The gun droops a moment in Max's grip. Then, remembering himself, he firms, jaw setting into a hard line.
"The same way you do." Sam's edging up again while Max's attention is fixed on her. She wants to yell at him. She wants to slap the back of his head and scream Stop trying to get yourself killed! but any of that would make Max's attention slide back to Sam again and that's what she's trying to prevent. They're going to have a long talk about this afterwards though. She tries not to add if any of us survive this to the end of the sentence.
"No…but that…that's not possible."
"You thought it was just you?" Sam asks. Mary wishes desperately for Superman's laser vision, wondering how such a smart boy can be so fucking stupid sometimes. "I thought the same thing, man. Just another freak, you know?"
Max's mouth opens as if he's going to say something then pinches primly shut again.
"Look," Sam says in a soothing voice, "I don't know…I don't know what it was like with you. I know I can't even imagine what it was like for you growing up like you did…"
Mary recognizes the bitter satisfaction that goes across Max's face, the perverse pride of knowing no one else's misfortunes outweigh yours. The familiarity takes her by the throat, a taste like bile in the back of her mouth.
"I couldn't tell anybody, when my visions started. Not my girl, not my mom, not my…my brother." Mary hears the catch in Sam's voice and has to look away, the sourness of her mouth worsening. She looks past the two boys to Hannah Miller, still flattened to the wall. Mary catches the other woman's gaze, reading the mingled terror and guilt. Mary's anger is quick to follow, burning up through her whole body to warm her through. Jennifer McCoy had risked her life and died to keep her son safe and out of the hands of the Aunts and this woman couldn't even protect Max from his father and uncle. She puts her anger aside, out of place and useless to her in this situation and signals with her eyes, indicating that Hannah should edge sideways, toward the door behind her and to her right. Hannah's eyes flick in that direction without comprehension and then back to Mary's.
"…but I know what it's like to be different," Sam continues in that same even, earnest voice. "To be afraid of it. To hate it. To want more than anything to be like the kids you see on the street, the ones you go to school with; the ones that don't even know how good they got it."
"Yeah," Max mutters, half under his breath.
"Max, there's so much you don't know about our family…stuff I'm just starting to learn. Stuff that…" Sam huffs, shaking his head. "Stuff that scares the shit out of me, man."
"Like what?" Max sniffles, uses his gun hand to wipe his nose.
Mary gives up trying to get Hannah to get herself out of the line of fire. "Like the fact that you're in a lot of danger."
It's a mistake; Max immediately snaps to attention, the .38 flashing back toward her. "Yeah—from you," Max says, his voice shaking again.
Mary shakes her head, cursing herself for a fool this time. "No; Max, you don't understand…"
"I understand that you're just like them! I never did anything to you and you want to hurt me." He reaches down and drags the hem of his shirt up. Underneath, his fish belly pale skin is mottled in a horror of bruises, new and old, and the white lace of scars. "Guess what, lady; too late."
"Max, we're not the ones that want to hurt you," Sam protests. Max swings the gun toward him reflexively and Mary takes an instinctive step forward, trying to put herself between Sam and the gun. Max pivots back toward her and Mary falls back that same step, hands lifted.
"He's telling the truth." It's hard not to shout the words, frustration eating at her. "Max, the McCoys want you dead."
"Why? What'd I ever do to them?"
"You were born," Sam answers with such bitterness that Mary feels something twang in her neck when she turns her head to look at him.
At first, Mary thinks that the frisson of cold she feels is from that note in Sam's voice. A moment later, she knows it's not.
The gun starts to tremble in Max's hand, harder than before. Max looks down at his hand like he's never seen it before then at her, fresh hurt and fear blooming in his sad-boy eyes. "W-hat…? What're you doing?" he demands.
"It's not me," Mary denies, falling back another step as her heart seems to rise in her breast and gain in speed. She looks at Sam, panic crystallizing. "Sam, get out of here!"
"Mom, what—?" Sam's eyebrows dip in, confused, as he looks from her to Max, still struggling with his own hand.
"Get out of here," she says again. "That's an order."
The gun is turning in Max's grip, though Max is clearly fighting with both physical and mental strength to keep it from doing so. Like a momentary wind blowing it to her, she hears a snatched fragment of voices, joined together in chanting and a faint whiff of beeswax and incense, dark and musky. Sam darts forward and tugs at Hannah Miller's arm, turning her bodily and pushing her at the kitchen's back door. "Get out of here."
"I don't…" Max stammers, eyes widening to nearly comical proportions as he fights his own body. "Please. Please stop."
"It's not me, " Mary repeats helplessly, torn between the impulse to go and help—not that she has any idea of what she can do—and the desire to throw Sam in the car and get as far from this place as possible. The sound of Max's wrist breaking, like a tree branch giving way, is what decides her. As Max screams, high-pitched and wavering wildly, Mary goes to him. "Don't, don't, don't…" Max begs. She has no idea if he's begging her or the Aunts, the weight of their malevolent attention like a hammer even at one remove.
"Max, you have to let the gun go." She can't be gentle, not with the Aunts' power steadily turning the gun on Max himself, but his bleat of pain nearly shreds her nerve as she tries to peel his fingers back from the gun's butt.
"I'm trying," Max grits, tears flooding freely down his pale, puckered face. "I can't…" His wrist breaks again, a thinner more brittle noise this time and he screams again, knees buckling. Mary puts one arm around him, holding him up, her other still prying fruitlessly at his locked fingers. His body radiates damp, sweaty heat, almost feverish. "I can't!"
"Mom!"
Sam's shout has been hardwired into her spine for twenty-two years, bypassing all higher brain function. At the sound of it, her attention fractures. As if it was somehow waiting for that, the gun eels around in Max's hand as if greased. The sound of it firing is deafening, dizzying, and Mary recoils, falling back, even as blood and other, less identifiable things hit her in a sickeningly hot gout.
She feels someone's—Sam's—arms go around her, holding her up much as she'd held Max only seconds before. He's dragging her out of the room, out of the house, and the blast of cold night air against her face is like a slap.
Dammit, Mary thinks, when she can again. Dammit, dammit, damn it!
***
Mary is crying. It's quiet, muffled by the asthmatic wheeze of the crappy ventilation and probably by a washcloth or towel as well, but she's been in there long enough for him to know and every so often, she can't muffle it enough and he hears her, quiet, animal sounds all the worse for being so soft.
Sam can probably count on one hand all the times he's heard his mother cry in his life and have fingers left over, and it never stops being intensely uncomfortable. Mary Winchester, tough as nails, is printed as indelibly in his head as something etched in stone. Jess would beat his ass for such a Cro-Magnon notion—as would his Humanities professor, Dr. Conroy—but when his mother descended far enough to prove herself human after all, Sam always found himself wanting somewhere else to be.
Except usually, there is nowhere else to go.
He supposes he could walk across the parking lot and the four lanes of traffic to the Waffle House, brooding over their oily truck-stop coffee, but that feels like the coward's way out. And, if he's being honest with himself, he feels uneasy about leaving her alone.
Sam didn't disbelieve his mom when she told him about the McCoys, not exactly, just as he hadn't disbelieved Dean on the rare occasion he'd tell Sam about their dad. But it's different in person. It was different to see his father's face, his eyes, the unruly hair, the thin scar on his cheek. It's different…
He still has the smoke in his hair from when they'd stopped to burn Mary's clothes, stained and spattered with Max Miller's blood, bone and brains. He still feels the chill, all the way down to the core of his bones at watching the gun turn—purposefully, malevolently—in Max's broken, useless hand and blow his brains out. It takes a kind of ruthlessness he doesn't understand, to do that to another person, in cold blood. Max Miller had killed his tormentors, people who had endangered his life and sanity. If his mother was to be believed, the McCoys killed Max for nothing better or more than their own convenience, to keep hold of something that was never theirs to begin with.
None of which explains why his mother's reaction has been…so dramatic. She hadn't liked Max. She would have shot him herself, if she'd felt she had to. And despite her fears, the two of them got away cleanly, as far as Sam can tell after another all-night drive to get the hell out of Michigan.
Finally, his every instinct telling him he's going to regret this, Sam slinks over to the bathroom door and taps tentatively at the faux wood. "Mom?"
"Go away, Sam," Mary answers promptly, only the slight breathlessness of her tone giving her away.
Sam makes a face at the door, though the answer was no less than he expected. But after a moment of glaring at the door—and the door doing nothing in return—he takes a deep breath, grabs the handle and opens the door. Though she's been in here for the better part of an hour, the ventilation is crap and the steam from her shower really hasn't dissipated at all, dampening her flannel pajama pants and tank top to her skin. Her hair's still wet too, hanging in stringy half-ringlets. The glare she directs at him, however, is pure hell fire.
"Which part of 'go away' wasn't clear?" she snaps, her voice thicker than usual and deepened by its roughness.
"I'm sorry," Sam says, not really meaning it. He squats down next to her, pretty much using up all the available space in the closet-like room. "I just… I've never seen you like this before. It's… It's freaking me out a little." He laughs a little, half-heartedly, because he really is freaking out, just a bit.
Mary just lowers her forehead onto her upturned knees, hair falling in blonde-black cascades to hide her face.
"Mom, we did everything we could," Sam persists. He can't believe he's on this end of the argument. "We followed the visions, we figured out who Max was…there wasn't anything else."
Mary's head snaps up, her lips pressed into a thin, hard, ugly line. "You don't get it," she says, arms tightening around her knees. "Max Miller…" She sighs angrily, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Max Miller is you, Sam. He's you. And I couldn't save him, either."
Abruptly, Sam understands. It's not Max Miller. Not, really. It's him. Just like it's always been him. All his life, it's been him "Mom…" He starts and stops, not knowing what he wants to say. He's only just now beginning to realize how much Mary has carried on his behalf, the kinds of things she's shielded him from. But that's it, right there, isn't it?
"Max Miller is not me," he offers finally, shrugging his shoulders. "Max Miller… Max was a kid that no one gave a crap about until it was too late. He was a kid nobody loved. I mean…maybe his mom did. She had to've, right, to go against the rest of the family? But… Look, I know I bitched a lot about you and how you raised us and stuff, Mom, but… You took care of us. You always did. And we always knew you loved us."
Mary snorts, a damp sound. Sam reaches over and tugs a length of toilet paper off the roll and hands it to her. She grimaces at him but takes it, blowing her nose noisily. Finally, quieter, she says, "That's not what you said before."
"Yeah, well…" Sam sighs and rakes a hand through his hair, aware of all the times she meant; the times where it felt like they couldn't be in the same room without fighting. "I was eighteen then and angry at the whole world."
"And now?"
Sam considers, mouth twisting ruefully. "And now I'm much older and wiser and…and grateful." It's worth saying it if only to see the way his mother's eyes widen and then how she tries to cover it, immediately going stone faced. He puts a hand on her arm. Her skin feels cool. "I'm grateful, Mom. I'm grateful that you made us survivors when there are so many victims out there. I'm sorry I didn't know it before. But I do now, okay?"
Mary's eyes are suspiciously brighter than they were a moment before as she nods curtly. "Okay."
Today's Word Count: 3,000
Current Total Word Count: 37,051
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: I'm at that point where I'm starting to question whether I'm going to be able to get this done in 100,000 words. I'm 37,000 in and I haven't done Dead Man's Blood or the denouement. I'm also at the Sloughs of Despair part where I'm convinced it's all dreck, I'm a hack and no one's going to read this anyway, after all this work. That's not a plea for reassurance. It's just the process. And my fear, don't get me wrong, but I'm always like this at this stage, too close to see if it's any good or not.
What's good: The Sam & Mary continues to be golden and I love the pivot of Mary's feelings about Max Miller. Of all the special kids, I think I felt the worst for him, poor thing. Word count's good too; I think that covers my deficit from before. Nineteen days in and I'm sitting kinda pretty.
What pleases me: "Look," Sam says in a soothing voice, "I don't know…I don't know what it was like with you. I know I can't even imagine what it was like for you growing up like you did…"
Mary recognizes the bitter satisfaction that goes across Max's face, the perverse pride of knowing no one else's misfortunes outweigh yours. The familiarity takes her by the throat, a taste like bile in the back of her mouth.
"I couldn't tell anybody, when my visions started. Not my girl, not my mom, not my…my brother." Mary hears the catch in Sam's voice and has to look away, the sourness of her mouth worsening. She looks past the two boys to Hannah Miller, still flattened to the wall. Mary catches the other woman's gaze, reading the mingled terror and guilt. Mary's anger is quick to follow, burning up through her whole body to warm her through. Jennifer McCoy had risked her life and died to keep her son safe and out of the hands of the Aunts and this woman couldn't even protect Max from his father and uncle. She puts her anger aside, out of place and useless to her in this situation and signals with her eyes, indicating that Hannah should edge sideways, toward the door behind her and to her right. Hannah's eyes flick in that direction without comprehension and then back to Mary's.
"…but I know what it's like to be different," Sam continues in that same even, earnest voice. "To be afraid of it. To hate it. To want more than anything to be like the kids you see on the street, the ones you go to school with; the ones that don't even know how good they got it."
"Yeah," Max mutters, half under his breath.
Previous parts can be found here
"You didn't stop them, not once!"
The voices are coming from the kitchen. Mary glances to Sam and he nods, clearly unhappy about the whole thing. She signals him to let her lead and he nods, though he gives her a look, somewhere between bitchface and pleading.
Mary understands Sam's worries; Sam's watched her kill monsters and things that used to be or could be men. He's never known where her lines are. And to be fair, Mary's not always sure where those lines are herself, especially when it comes to Sam and Dean. But she doesn't want to kill Max Miller. Not if she can help it. Not if there's any hope that he can be salvaged from the wreckage of his bloodline.
She was hoping to get the drop on Max, but from behind her, Sam shouts, "Max!" It's enough warning for him to rip the gun from her fingers with his TK.
"Max, what's happening?" Hannah Miller wails, as the gun slides across the floor to her stepson. Mary steps forward, but not fast enough; Max stoops and scoops the gun up, turning it back on her and Sam.
"Max," she says, careful to pitch her voice calmly and levelly, "we're not here to hurt you."
"Oh, yeah, right," Max sneers. "That's why you came in here pointing a gun at me."
"You were threatening your mother with a knife," Mary points out gently.
"She's not my mother." Max glances back at Hannah, still cowering against the wall. Sam is trying to edge between them and Mary suppresses the impulse to knock him back with her own TK. Her telekinesis can't outrace a bullet and Max is on a hair trigger.
"Fine, then. You're right. Your stepmother. Because your real mother was a McCoy, right?" Mary's whole body feels like a tuning fork, vibrating with the awareness of each person in the room—their place, their presence, the perilous crosscurrent of their emotions. More than that, she feels her blood sing with the incredible stupidity of just being here, when the McCoys might already know about Max and could be moving against him. Against all of them.
"How do you know that?" Max demands suspiciously. He swings the gun at Sam suddenly, freezing Sam in his tracks. "Stop moving!" Max screams, and the knife wavers and darts at Hannah Miller again, nicking a teardrop of blood from her cheek just below her eye. "Just…everyone stay still!"
"Sam," Mary warns in a low voice.
Sam nods unwillingly, but doesn't back off, still halfway between Max and Hannah.
"Max." Mary's gifts aren't strong enough to use on another McCoy, but she hasn't been relying solely on her Voice all these years. Not with a son as stubborn as Sam. She fights to put all that hard-won persuasiveness into her tone, to keep Max focused and on her.
"How did you know that?" Max asks again. His hands are shaking badly enough that he's having a hard time holding the .38 straight…though not so much so that he wouldn't hit her, at this close a range. "About my mom?"
"Because I'm a McCoy too."
"You're lying."
"I'm not. Max, I swear to you, I'm not. Watch." She's been using too much lately, she knows that, but she literally can't think of another way to convince Max. So Mary reaches out with her mind—already feeling the trembling precursors to the headache to follow—and tips the cutting board over, spilling green peppers onto the linoleum. She considered going after the gun, but she suspects Max is a lot stronger than she is, and she doesn't trust what he'll do if startled. Besides, she needs his trust if she's going to have any hope of saving his life.
"How…how did you do that?" The gun droops a moment in Max's grip. Then, remembering himself, he firms, jaw setting into a hard line.
"The same way you do." Sam's edging up again while Max's attention is fixed on her. She wants to yell at him. She wants to slap the back of his head and scream Stop trying to get yourself killed! but any of that would make Max's attention slide back to Sam again and that's what she's trying to prevent. They're going to have a long talk about this afterwards though. She tries not to add if any of us survive this to the end of the sentence.
"No…but that…that's not possible."
"You thought it was just you?" Sam asks. Mary wishes desperately for Superman's laser vision, wondering how such a smart boy can be so fucking stupid sometimes. "I thought the same thing, man. Just another freak, you know?"
Max's mouth opens as if he's going to say something then pinches primly shut again.
"Look," Sam says in a soothing voice, "I don't know…I don't know what it was like with you. I know I can't even imagine what it was like for you growing up like you did…"
Mary recognizes the bitter satisfaction that goes across Max's face, the perverse pride of knowing no one else's misfortunes outweigh yours. The familiarity takes her by the throat, a taste like bile in the back of her mouth.
"I couldn't tell anybody, when my visions started. Not my girl, not my mom, not my…my brother." Mary hears the catch in Sam's voice and has to look away, the sourness of her mouth worsening. She looks past the two boys to Hannah Miller, still flattened to the wall. Mary catches the other woman's gaze, reading the mingled terror and guilt. Mary's anger is quick to follow, burning up through her whole body to warm her through. Jennifer McCoy had risked her life and died to keep her son safe and out of the hands of the Aunts and this woman couldn't even protect Max from his father and uncle. She puts her anger aside, out of place and useless to her in this situation and signals with her eyes, indicating that Hannah should edge sideways, toward the door behind her and to her right. Hannah's eyes flick in that direction without comprehension and then back to Mary's.
"…but I know what it's like to be different," Sam continues in that same even, earnest voice. "To be afraid of it. To hate it. To want more than anything to be like the kids you see on the street, the ones you go to school with; the ones that don't even know how good they got it."
"Yeah," Max mutters, half under his breath.
"Max, there's so much you don't know about our family…stuff I'm just starting to learn. Stuff that…" Sam huffs, shaking his head. "Stuff that scares the shit out of me, man."
"Like what?" Max sniffles, uses his gun hand to wipe his nose.
Mary gives up trying to get Hannah to get herself out of the line of fire. "Like the fact that you're in a lot of danger."
It's a mistake; Max immediately snaps to attention, the .38 flashing back toward her. "Yeah—from you," Max says, his voice shaking again.
Mary shakes her head, cursing herself for a fool this time. "No; Max, you don't understand…"
"I understand that you're just like them! I never did anything to you and you want to hurt me." He reaches down and drags the hem of his shirt up. Underneath, his fish belly pale skin is mottled in a horror of bruises, new and old, and the white lace of scars. "Guess what, lady; too late."
"Max, we're not the ones that want to hurt you," Sam protests. Max swings the gun toward him reflexively and Mary takes an instinctive step forward, trying to put herself between Sam and the gun. Max pivots back toward her and Mary falls back that same step, hands lifted.
"He's telling the truth." It's hard not to shout the words, frustration eating at her. "Max, the McCoys want you dead."
"Why? What'd I ever do to them?"
"You were born," Sam answers with such bitterness that Mary feels something twang in her neck when she turns her head to look at him.
At first, Mary thinks that the frisson of cold she feels is from that note in Sam's voice. A moment later, she knows it's not.
The gun starts to tremble in Max's hand, harder than before. Max looks down at his hand like he's never seen it before then at her, fresh hurt and fear blooming in his sad-boy eyes. "W-hat…? What're you doing?" he demands.
"It's not me," Mary denies, falling back another step as her heart seems to rise in her breast and gain in speed. She looks at Sam, panic crystallizing. "Sam, get out of here!"
"Mom, what—?" Sam's eyebrows dip in, confused, as he looks from her to Max, still struggling with his own hand.
"Get out of here," she says again. "That's an order."
The gun is turning in Max's grip, though Max is clearly fighting with both physical and mental strength to keep it from doing so. Like a momentary wind blowing it to her, she hears a snatched fragment of voices, joined together in chanting and a faint whiff of beeswax and incense, dark and musky. Sam darts forward and tugs at Hannah Miller's arm, turning her bodily and pushing her at the kitchen's back door. "Get out of here."
"I don't…" Max stammers, eyes widening to nearly comical proportions as he fights his own body. "Please. Please stop."
"It's not me, " Mary repeats helplessly, torn between the impulse to go and help—not that she has any idea of what she can do—and the desire to throw Sam in the car and get as far from this place as possible. The sound of Max's wrist breaking, like a tree branch giving way, is what decides her. As Max screams, high-pitched and wavering wildly, Mary goes to him. "Don't, don't, don't…" Max begs. She has no idea if he's begging her or the Aunts, the weight of their malevolent attention like a hammer even at one remove.
"Max, you have to let the gun go." She can't be gentle, not with the Aunts' power steadily turning the gun on Max himself, but his bleat of pain nearly shreds her nerve as she tries to peel his fingers back from the gun's butt.
"I'm trying," Max grits, tears flooding freely down his pale, puckered face. "I can't…" His wrist breaks again, a thinner more brittle noise this time and he screams again, knees buckling. Mary puts one arm around him, holding him up, her other still prying fruitlessly at his locked fingers. His body radiates damp, sweaty heat, almost feverish. "I can't!"
"Mom!"
Sam's shout has been hardwired into her spine for twenty-two years, bypassing all higher brain function. At the sound of it, her attention fractures. As if it was somehow waiting for that, the gun eels around in Max's hand as if greased. The sound of it firing is deafening, dizzying, and Mary recoils, falling back, even as blood and other, less identifiable things hit her in a sickeningly hot gout.
She feels someone's—Sam's—arms go around her, holding her up much as she'd held Max only seconds before. He's dragging her out of the room, out of the house, and the blast of cold night air against her face is like a slap.
Dammit, Mary thinks, when she can again. Dammit, dammit, damn it!
Mary is crying. It's quiet, muffled by the asthmatic wheeze of the crappy ventilation and probably by a washcloth or towel as well, but she's been in there long enough for him to know and every so often, she can't muffle it enough and he hears her, quiet, animal sounds all the worse for being so soft.
Sam can probably count on one hand all the times he's heard his mother cry in his life and have fingers left over, and it never stops being intensely uncomfortable. Mary Winchester, tough as nails, is printed as indelibly in his head as something etched in stone. Jess would beat his ass for such a Cro-Magnon notion—as would his Humanities professor, Dr. Conroy—but when his mother descended far enough to prove herself human after all, Sam always found himself wanting somewhere else to be.
Except usually, there is nowhere else to go.
He supposes he could walk across the parking lot and the four lanes of traffic to the Waffle House, brooding over their oily truck-stop coffee, but that feels like the coward's way out. And, if he's being honest with himself, he feels uneasy about leaving her alone.
Sam didn't disbelieve his mom when she told him about the McCoys, not exactly, just as he hadn't disbelieved Dean on the rare occasion he'd tell Sam about their dad. But it's different in person. It was different to see his father's face, his eyes, the unruly hair, the thin scar on his cheek. It's different…
He still has the smoke in his hair from when they'd stopped to burn Mary's clothes, stained and spattered with Max Miller's blood, bone and brains. He still feels the chill, all the way down to the core of his bones at watching the gun turn—purposefully, malevolently—in Max's broken, useless hand and blow his brains out. It takes a kind of ruthlessness he doesn't understand, to do that to another person, in cold blood. Max Miller had killed his tormentors, people who had endangered his life and sanity. If his mother was to be believed, the McCoys killed Max for nothing better or more than their own convenience, to keep hold of something that was never theirs to begin with.
None of which explains why his mother's reaction has been…so dramatic. She hadn't liked Max. She would have shot him herself, if she'd felt she had to. And despite her fears, the two of them got away cleanly, as far as Sam can tell after another all-night drive to get the hell out of Michigan.
Finally, his every instinct telling him he's going to regret this, Sam slinks over to the bathroom door and taps tentatively at the faux wood. "Mom?"
"Go away, Sam," Mary answers promptly, only the slight breathlessness of her tone giving her away.
Sam makes a face at the door, though the answer was no less than he expected. But after a moment of glaring at the door—and the door doing nothing in return—he takes a deep breath, grabs the handle and opens the door. Though she's been in here for the better part of an hour, the ventilation is crap and the steam from her shower really hasn't dissipated at all, dampening her flannel pajama pants and tank top to her skin. Her hair's still wet too, hanging in stringy half-ringlets. The glare she directs at him, however, is pure hell fire.
"Which part of 'go away' wasn't clear?" she snaps, her voice thicker than usual and deepened by its roughness.
"I'm sorry," Sam says, not really meaning it. He squats down next to her, pretty much using up all the available space in the closet-like room. "I just… I've never seen you like this before. It's… It's freaking me out a little." He laughs a little, half-heartedly, because he really is freaking out, just a bit.
Mary just lowers her forehead onto her upturned knees, hair falling in blonde-black cascades to hide her face.
"Mom, we did everything we could," Sam persists. He can't believe he's on this end of the argument. "We followed the visions, we figured out who Max was…there wasn't anything else."
Mary's head snaps up, her lips pressed into a thin, hard, ugly line. "You don't get it," she says, arms tightening around her knees. "Max Miller…" She sighs angrily, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Max Miller is you, Sam. He's you. And I couldn't save him, either."
Abruptly, Sam understands. It's not Max Miller. Not, really. It's him. Just like it's always been him. All his life, it's been him "Mom…" He starts and stops, not knowing what he wants to say. He's only just now beginning to realize how much Mary has carried on his behalf, the kinds of things she's shielded him from. But that's it, right there, isn't it?
"Max Miller is not me," he offers finally, shrugging his shoulders. "Max Miller… Max was a kid that no one gave a crap about until it was too late. He was a kid nobody loved. I mean…maybe his mom did. She had to've, right, to go against the rest of the family? But… Look, I know I bitched a lot about you and how you raised us and stuff, Mom, but… You took care of us. You always did. And we always knew you loved us."
Mary snorts, a damp sound. Sam reaches over and tugs a length of toilet paper off the roll and hands it to her. She grimaces at him but takes it, blowing her nose noisily. Finally, quieter, she says, "That's not what you said before."
"Yeah, well…" Sam sighs and rakes a hand through his hair, aware of all the times she meant; the times where it felt like they couldn't be in the same room without fighting. "I was eighteen then and angry at the whole world."
"And now?"
Sam considers, mouth twisting ruefully. "And now I'm much older and wiser and…and grateful." It's worth saying it if only to see the way his mother's eyes widen and then how she tries to cover it, immediately going stone faced. He puts a hand on her arm. Her skin feels cool. "I'm grateful, Mom. I'm grateful that you made us survivors when there are so many victims out there. I'm sorry I didn't know it before. But I do now, okay?"
Mary's eyes are suspiciously brighter than they were a moment before as she nods curtly. "Okay."